Two new faces in the Tuesday N00b Club of late, which had previously been a very more exclusive club than is probably healthy, and with new members come new lists of completions to sort out. While much of Guild Wars can be soloed via clever management of Heroes and Henchmen, things really do go much more smoothly with more warm-bodies in play.
The previous session, and our new Dervish Friend's introduction to How We Do Things went well, and was probably quite representative, all things considered, what with us all getting comprehensively wiped out down to -60DP with about three fights of the entrance of Heart of the Shiverpeaks, and yet some how managing to complete the difficult bomb-dropping exercise at the end flawlessly and win. It's a rollercoaster with us usually.
My own attempts to appear Competent in front of New People were not helped by me accidentally doing my usual thing of having my Signet of Capture in the wrong slot, causing my Proper Elite to be removed from the skillbar upon zoning to Level 2, instead of the useless Necromancer one I'd grabbed in my ongoing plodding progress toward the Skill Hunter titles. Ho hum!
This week saw three of us revisiting the final Prophecies mission, Hell's Precipice, in an attempt to partake of the recently added 'proper' ending to the first campaign. From Factions onward, each successfully completed campaign culminates in a special Victory Zone, where all the NPCs you'd met along the way turn out to congratulate you, and a special end-game Green weapon is handed out, while fireworks burst and the end credits roll. Prophecies never had this, and merely dumped you out in the rabble of Droknar's Forge, one of the later-game towns without much fanfare.
This has now been rectified, but to have a peek ourselves, Hell's Precipice has to be completed again. I've lost track of how many goes I've had through here now - alts, skill captures and so on. not a personal favourite, being one of those missions where you can do fine for 45 mins, and then suddenly wipe and have to do it all again from scratch. Complex roaming mob groups, and the Titan type mobs which split into two more monsters when killed, and ohhhhh...the fire...
Still, being a rather historic mission, it certainly wasn't designed with Dervishes and Paragons in mind, and one of our team was a Dervish, heavily specialise in cold damage, and my regular entourage usually includes Hayda, a Motivation Paragon who sings all sorts of songs about 'Not Being On Fire!' Our other compatriot was an Elementalist, again, specialised in cold damage. Me, I just went with my usual Domination Smackdown build, which is probably one of the least subtle ways to Mesmerise, but certainly gets the job done!
Having learnt by now to associate this particular mission with horrible burney-death and humiliating failure, I was expecting the run to take at least three goes to get right, but was surprised by the first-class conduct and expertise of our two new members, and after a shaky start, even I learnt that it is usually a good idea to only have one person call targets!
The mission features a number of specific challenges; the bit near the start where a magma monster shouts something in Magma-ese and causes about 20 mobs to all charge in from various directions, which we often get trampled by, but dodged successfully; the bit where the Bonus Mission NPC gets jumped by a magma monster and dies before we can get the mission, who we successfully defended; the bit where the three super-magma monsters stand in a lake of magma and cause us to all burn to death trying to melee, which we killed without anyone getting crispified; the bit with the portals and patrols, where we often just get steamrollered; the bit with the undead warrior cutscene where we often get trampled before we realise we're not in a cutscene anymore, and of course the bit with the evil nemesis where we typically get overwhelmed by adds, where we floor-managed the encounter like it was a circus.
All in all, a textbook run, and I was terribly impressed. Our new members, having formed some quite accurate expectations of the Tuesday N00b Club, seemed quite disappointed that we didn't die lots, wipe and need five goes at it, but I expect the follow-on Titan quests, had from the Vision of Glint in Droknar's, will deliver in due course!
I expect we'll have to do the above again though, as we had an absentee, who I usually attempt the mission with...hmm...makes one think actually...
Anyway, successful completion this time whisked us to an area I'd not seen before, the old Droknar's Forge PvP Arena, now defunct. Prior to Factions, and the Great Temple of Balthazar, PvP was geographically keyed to towns along the PvE Campaign trail. It's probably better now, with the arenas all being someplace anyone can get to at any time, but the gated-off swirleys in these later towns had always annoyed me. Now we got to see inside at least one of them.
The obligatory post-victory dance-party screenshot, with our Dervish to the left and our Elementalist to the right. I picked out a Fast casting Staff in the end, mostly because I already now have Domination, Illusion and Inspiration Staves. I'm not sure it's much help mind you - there are only nine FC skills in the game, which will make for a especially comical Comedy Mesmer Build. Still, I'll try anything once!
Much as Hell's Precipice annoys me, it is nice to have the full set of win-zones now. Well worth the trip for the sense of closure on it all.